With the development of technology, the energy consumption is increasing, so energy saving and emission reduction as well as the improvement of the energy utilization ratio have become focuses of public attention. The heat-transfer equipment, as a core member of the high temperature system, not only requires efficient heat transfer performance, but also requires a compact structure. However, the most commonly used type of heat-transfer equipment at present is the shell and tube heat exchanger which has a large footprint and low heat transfer efficiency and it can be difficult to meet the requirements of the aerospace, high-temperature gas-cooled reactor, gas turbine and other fields using the shell and tube heat exchanger.
The plate-fin heat exchanger features a compact structure and high heat transfer efficiency. It is highly promising to study the plate-fin heat exchanger. However, the service environment of the plate-fin heat exchanger is getting worse and the high temperature and high pressure environment calls for increasingly strict design requirements for the plate-fin heat exchangers. The fracture mode is time-dependent for the service at high temperature and alternating load and the current design codes for pressure vessels are limited to the shell and tube heat exchangers and based on the elastic-plastic fracture mechanics (EPFM) theory, have neither considered the characteristics of the creep and fatigue fractures nor involved the brazing process, service environment and other factors and cannot be directly adopted for the design of the plate-fin heat exchangers.